4th of July World Tour

We celebrated Independence Day from sun up 'til sundown.

First -- lovely flag ceremony/breakfast/bike parade with the Mormons:

Then we headed to Mira Mesa for their 4th of July parade.
Little did we know we'd be celebrating the 4th of July with some colorful characters:


It all started normal with the stars & stripes, marching bands, old cars......

And then we spotted this:

 And then you could hardly see this beauty queen with the size of that crown:

It was like every beauty queen had to participate in the pagaent with their great grandma:

I think they were handing out the crowns & titles at 7-11 one night:

We even had Miss Low Rider:

We probably saw about 50 beauty queens in this hour-long spectacle -- from age 5 to age 105. It was HILARIOUS!


We also saw some other great laugh out loud moments:
Ghetto blaster on a broom stick anyone?

Pretty sure this guy was born the same year the car was built:

Every parade needs the lady with the white boots:

Pure creepiness with a real donkey:

We weren't sure during this whole parade if we were in America, the Phillipines or Vietnam:

But then it just got better.....
We got to celebrate the 4th of July in Star Trek land..... 

 [Someone we were sitting by made the comment, "Look, they're from Star Wars". Oh boy -- Don't mix Star Trek & Star Wars crazies up because we got an earful from them....]

These people didn't even wear the Star Wars motif -- but crazies are very accepting of all forms of middle-earth-space-mid-evil-turn-of-the-century friends. Glad they've found each other.

Next, we headed to Old Poway Park for an old-time, traditional park celebration. It was DELIGHTFUL -- crafts for the kids, old cars, big band playing in the gazebo & hot apple pie & rootbeer floats. 

Even got to meet President Washington:

We capped off the day with the Spencer's hosting us for a grand BBQ:

Yes -- These do exist & they were AWESOME.

 We didn't get any pictures of the people.....We were enjoying the food & games far too much.

We had actually seen fireworks on July 3rd....and were so tired out by dusk that we caught the end of a fireworks show from the backyard & then called it a night.


Happy Freedom. Happy Food. Happy People. Happy 4th of July.